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KALAMAZOO, MI – It sounds like a science project designed by Al Gore: Take
excess carbon dioxide, liquidize it and inject it into abandoned oil fields,
filling the porous rocks beneath with the CO2 and -- not so incidentally --
flushing out the oil that remains.

A Michigan company has used the technique to retrieve 1.6
million barrels of oil that, its owner says, would not otherwise have been produced.

Core Energy, based in Traverse City, says it is the only company
east of the Mississippi River doing this kind of Enhanced Oil Recovery (EOR) — with the
help of Western Michigan University's Michigan Geological Repository for
Research and Education. Around the U.S., about 80 projects reportedly produce 230,000 barrels of oil per day using this technique.

"The potential in Michigan is tens of millions of barrels,"
said Bob Mannes, president and CEO of Core Energy LLC, and a third-generation Michigan oilman.

"It's a win-win. It's absolutely the right thing to do," Mannes said. "It's the ultimate
recycling project because we utilize existing well bores wherever possible."

That said, the company does often drill additional wells, he
said. The carbon dioxide Core Energy uses comes from natural gas production from the Antrim Shale in northern Michigan.

A study done by Clean Wisconsin found that crude oil produced
from CO2 EOR creates 40 percent less carbon dioxide than conventional crude
oil.

There are potentially 800 Michigan oil fields where the
technique could be used, William
Harrison, professor emeritus of geosciences and director of MGRRE,said. So far, Core Energy has used EOR on seven.

"We think the potential is phenomenal," Harrison said on a recent
tour of the repository, which is essentially a library or archives for rocks. It houses 500,000 feet of core samples, as well as an additional 20,000 samples. The facility is also home to the former University of Michigan
collections and the Michigan Geological Survey, which was transferred to
WMU in 2011, making the MGRRE the primary geological resource in the
state.

"That's
additional oil that never would have been recovered otherwise," Harrison said.

WMU's research suggests that 180 to 200 million barrels
of "stranded" oil in old fields in the state could be recovered through this
technology, Harrison said.

MGRRE originally teamed up in 2005 with Core Energy and
Battelle Memorial Institute, an Ohio-based company, in a public-private
partnership to study geologic carbon sequestration. The effort, known as the Midwest
Regional Carbon Sequestration Partnership, collects data and samples of
Michigan's geological formations relevant to CO2 storage, containment and
potential for enhanced oil recovery.

The regional partnership is one of seven
established by the U.S. Department of Energy's National Energy Technology
Laboratory to study carbon sequestration as an option for mitigating climate
change.

In 2009, they received more than $600,000 in federal funding
secured with the assistance of U.S. Rep. Fred Upton, R-St. Joseph.

Suggesting that energy companies should pay to store
carbon dioxide underground hasn't proved terribly popular with the industry,
Harrison said.

The big question: Why should we spend hundreds of
millions of dollars to get rid of carbon dioxide?

"The cost was phenomenal," said Harrison. "We needed to
find some way for it to pay for itself."

Enter the enhanced oil recovery effort.

In a process known as "piggy-backing," after a company such
as Core Energy made a profit from the oil, another organization — such as the
state or federal government or a nonprofit — potentially could then use the
drill and other infrastructure already installed as a carbon dioxide dispersal
well, Harrison explained.

"To me, this is an enormously logical and ecologically
driven approach," Harrison said.

Mannes said that no federal
money has gone toward Core Energy's exploratory efforts. The company also uses
3-D seismic technology in its exploration, which it says allows it to be more
accurate when drilling, leading to fewer negative environmental effects.

The partnership with MGRRE has been a tremendous help, he
said, calling Harrison's more than three decades of work collecting samples from all over the
state "invaluable."

"They're a valuable resource. Their contributions to the state
of Michigan go beyond the regional partnership," Mannes said. "Michigan is very
fortunate to have that facility in the state.

"We're always looking for ways of further understanding of
Michigan geology and MGGRE is the tool to do that in the state of Michigan," he
said. "The usefulness of that organization goes far beyond the oil and gas
industry."

Yvonne Zipp is a staff writer at the Kalamazoo Gazette. Email her at yzipp@mlive.com or follow her on Twitter.